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As a child, Harriet Tubman was regularly beaten by the people to whom she was hired. One time, she was struck in the head with a heavy metal weight, which led to a lifetime of debilitating headaches and seizures. It also led to what doctors might call hallucinations, but Tubman understood them as visions. She was a devout Christian, and to her the visions that she experienced as a result of that head injury were from God. To her mind, God would reveal things to her while she was dreaming or in the midst of a seizure. Ever the rebel and free soul, she rejected the New Testament teachings that slaves should be obedient to their masters. She didn’t belong to any human being; she belonged to God.
